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Carlson & Neul: A Global Partnership to Produce White Space Radios

Written by PSIT Staff

Carlson and Neul announced plans to jointly develop and market a new white space radio networking system aimed at bringing affordable broadband to millions of people around the world. This marks the beginning of a significant, global partnership between two established leaders in white space technologies.

For more than a decade, Carlson has designed and developed products to deliver high-speed Internet and wireline-quality voice connectivity to rural communities and businesses with remote operations. Specializing in hard-to-reach regions, Carlson provides fixed-wireless systems using TV white-space and microwave technology to deliver full voice and data connections no matter how rugged the terrain. More than 20 million customers in nearly 200 communities rely on Carlson radios for their broadband needs, from the Arctic Circle to the jungles of Peru. Carlson serves customers in the telecommunications, public safety and energy industries.

Neul is a Cambridge, U.K. company founded by a group of entrepreneurs with an impressive track record. The core management team built Europe’s most successful fabless semiconductor company, CSR. Neul is unifying the fragmented world of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, with the world’s first white space radio system and a new, open M2M communications standard.

Neul is transforming wireless data communications by slashing the cost of the spectrum, base stations and the terminals needed to set up wide-area wireless networks. This will enable their customers to build networks and applications that offer completely new kinds of devices, services and business models.

The Neul / Carlson system will give broadband users access to more than 200MHz of high-quality white-space radio spectrum. Volume shipments of the new system are planned before the end of 2011, with samples and development equipment available before then. Carlson and Neul are committed to working closely with wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) and others to bring affordable broadband connectivity to under-served regions around the globe.

This groundbreaking technology uses ‘white spaces’, or unused portions, of UHF spectrum for broadband. Thanks to its outstanding propagation characteristics, UHF signal can travel through walls and other obstacles: Line of sight is not needed to the subscriber’s home. As a result, WISPs using the new system can deliver faster, more reliable service to more customers with the same network infrastructure, driving additional revenue.

“Broadband is a global necessity in today’s world, and we see this partnership as a leap forward for rural broadband worldwide,” said Carlson CEO James Carlson. “White space technology is especially effective in sparsely populated areas and rugged terrain, giving rural communities real-time access to the business opportunities and educational resources the Internet has to offer.”

“Millions of people around the world do not currently have access to decent broadband at affordable prices,” commented Luke D’Arcy, VP of Marketing at Neul. “The technology Neul and Carlson are developing together gives Internet service providers the means to serve more customers with a quality broadband service, particularly in rural locations, through white space’s long-range, low-cost and excellent propagation characteristics.”

Carlson and Neul are combining their strengths to deliver a high-bandwidth product that offers unrivalled range and signal penetration. This revolutionary product is designed for use in the U.S., U.K. and beyond. With approval from both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Ofcom (the U.K.’s spectrum regulatory entity), the companies plan to introduce the product to the open market by year’s end. White space technology is also applicable to a variety of other use cases, including in low-data-rate, even longer-range machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.

Both Carlson and Neul have been at the forefront of the white-space radio revolution internationally, with active trials in the U.S. and the U.K. Carlson was one of the first to implement successful TV white space-based broadband systems under experimental license, most notably on Native American reservations.